Ernst Otto Burchard (9 September 1876 – 5 February 1920) was a German physician, sexologist, and

gay rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Not ...

advocate and author. Burchard, who was gay, testified as an expert witness in several court cases involving prosecutions on grounds of Paragraph 175, which criminalized homosexual practices.

Early life

Burchard was born in Heilsberg (modern

Lidzbark Warmiński Lidzbark Warmiński (; , ), often shortened to Lidzbark, is a historical town located within the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It is the capital of Lidzbark County. Lidzbark Warmiński was once the capital of Warmia and fo ...

, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship). He studied medicine in

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

and

Kiel Kiel ( ; ) is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. With a population of around 250,000, it is Germany's largest city on the Baltic Sea. It is located on the Kieler Förde inlet of the Ba ...

, taking his doctoral degree in 1900 with a dissertation on ''Einige Fälle von vorübergehender Glycosurie''. After his studies, he worked as a physician in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and opened his own practice. Here he met Dr.

Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician, Sexology, sexologist and LGBTQ advocate, whose German citizenship was later revoked by the Nazi government.David A. Gerstner, ''Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer ...

and joined him to found the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee along with the pastor Georg Plock and Baron Hermann von Teschenberg.

Gay rights activism

Burchard had a successful career in medicine. After several years as a general practitioner in Berlin, he assisted Hirschfeld in starting the Scientific Humanitarian Committee with publisher Max Spohr, lawyer Eduard Oberg and writer Max von Bülow. The group aimed to undertake research to defend the rights of homosexuals and to repeal Paragraph 175, the section of the German penal code that had criminalized homosexual acts between men since 1871. They argued that the law encouraged blackmail, and the motto of the Committee, "Justice through science", reflected Hirschfeld's belief that a better scientific understanding of homosexuality would eliminate hostility toward homosexuals. Hirschfeld was a tireless campaigner and became a well-known public figure. Benedict Friedländer and some others left the Scientific Humanitarian Committee and formed another group, the "Bund für männliche Kultur" or "Union for Male Culture", which however did not exist long. It argued that male-male love is a simple aspect of virile manliness rather than a special condition. The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, under Hirschfeld's leadership, managed to gather over 5000 signatures from prominent Germans for a petition to overturn Paragraph 175. Signatories included

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

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Max Brod Max Brod (; 27 May 1884 – 20 December 1968) was a Bohemian-born Israeli author, composer, and journalist. He is notable for promoting the work of writer Franz Kafka and composer Leoš Janáček. Although he was a prolific writer in his ow ...

Karl Kautsky Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian Marxism, Marxist theorist. A leading theorist of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Second International, Kautsky advocated orthodox Marxism, a ...

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, Richard von Krafft-Ebing and

Eduard Bernstein Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German Marxist theorist and politician. A prominent member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he has been both condemned and praised as a "Revisionism (Marxism), revisi ...

. The bill was brought before the Reichstag in 1898, but was only supported by a minority from the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together w ...

, prompting a frustrated Hirschfeld to consider the controversial strategy of "

outing Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBTQ person's sexual orientation or gender identity without their consent. It is often done for political reasons, either to instrumentalize homophobia, biphobia, and/or transphobia Transphobia consists ...

" — that is, forcing some of the prominent lawmakers who had remained silent out of the closet. The bill continued to come before parliament, and eventually began to make progress in the 1920s before the takeover of the

Nazi party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

obliterated any hopes for reform. He and Hirschfeld co-authored several articles on sexology. In 1913, Burchard published his books ''Zur Psychologie der Selbstbezichtigung'' and ''Der sexuelle Infantilismus'', and in 1914 he published his ''Lexikon des gesamten Sexuallebens''. Burchard also wrote lyric poems for the gay periodicals ''

Der Eigene ''Der Eigene'' (, ) was the first Homosexuality, gay journal in the world, published from 1896 to 1932 by Adolf Brand in Berlin. Brand contributed many poems and articles; other contributors included writers Benedict Friedlaender, Hanns Heinz Ewe ...

'' and '' Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen'', including the poem "Vivat Fridericus". Burchard died on 5 February 1920, in Berlin and was buried at the ''Luisenfriedhof'' cemetery.

Works

* ''Der sexuelle Infantilismus'' (with editor Magnus Hirschfeld), Halle a. S. : Marhold, 1913. * ''Zur Psychologie der Selbstbezichtigung'', Adler-Verlag, Berlin, 1913. * ''Lexikon des gesamten Sexuallebens'', Adler-Verlag, Berlin, 1914.

Tribute

The German director

Rosa von Praunheim Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky (born Holger Radtke; 25 November 1942), known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, producer, professor of directing and one of the most influential and famous LGBT social move ...

made the film Der Einstein des Sex in 1999, based on the life of Magnus Hirschfeld.

References

* Blasius, Mark & Shane Phelan (eds.) ''We Are Everywhere: A Historical Source Book of Gay and Lesbian Politics''. New York: Routledge, 1997. See chapter: "The Emergence of a Gay and Lesbian Political Culture in Germany." * Dynes, Wayne R. (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of Homosexuality.'' New York and London: Garland, 1990. * Gordon, Mel. ''Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin''. Los Angeles, Feral House, 2000. * Grau, Günter (ed.) ''Hidden

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

? Gay and Lesbian Persecution in Germany, 1933–45''. New York: Routledge, 1995. * Johansson, Warren & William A. Percy.
''Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence.''
New York: Harrington Park Press, 1994. * Lauritsen, John and David Thorstad. ''The Early Homosexual Rights Movement, 1864–1935''. 2nd rev. edition. * Steakley, James D. ''The Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany.'' New York: Arno, 1975.

External links